I’ve spent the day doing nothing, aside from washing a load of dishes. It’s been a lazy end-of-the-holiday, just hanging out watching re-runs of Match Game ’74.
I had scheduled a housewarming/open house yesterday, and invited a bunch of the neighbors. Sadly, none of them showed up. This is, of course, a common occurrence for me, so I shrugged it off and looked on the bright side: I now have 9 bottles of wine stashed away for the future.
I don’t know why people never show up for my parties. People call me Mary Richards when they hear of my horrific party luck; since I never really watched much Mary Tyler Moore, I’m assuming that she had the same luck.
Oh, well. I still have meatballs and petite quiche left, along with wine and beer and chips. I’ll be partying myself for a few weeks, eh?
Society constantly changes and not always for the better. Most of my younger friends don’t even know what a house warming party is. And these days neighbors seem to be shocked if you even walk next door to say… Hi.
When my next door neighbors moved into their custom built home, I watched as they unloaded truckloads into the night. I knew their first morning would be rough and I was ready.
At the first sign of movement I was at their door with pots of fresh coffee and a hot breakfast. At first shocked that I would do such a thing. The realization soon set in that they were in fact both tired and hungry and I was holding the answer to both in my hands.
I didn’t join them, I just dropped it off and let them wake up on their own but that one small step paid dividends for years. I was always the ‘wonderful’ neighbor. We never had any conflicts over property lines, yard or flower beds even though no fence stood between us.
I’m afraid its not like that anymore, we build high fences and lock ourselves into our own private little worlds. Afraid to make even a few small steps out into the light. Rest assured, there are still some of us out there, had I received an invitation I would have arrived with a bottle of wine or potted plant in my hands.
And Mary Richard’s didn’t have bad luck with parties! She had bad luck picking coworkers.